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ABUSE OF POWER

Trump Will Likely Pardon His Felonious Pals — the Only Question Is When: Columnist

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In a column for the Washington Post, political observer Colbert King suggests that Donald Trump will exercise his presidential prerogatives and pardon former aides convicted of crimes associated with himself or his campaign because his base seems to not care what he does while in office.

According to the columnist: it’s not a matter of if, but of when.

“The future isn’t promised, but it is a good bet that three felons and close allies of President Trump — Roger Stone (found guilty of obstruction of a congressional investigation, witness tampering and lying to Congress), Paul Manafort (serving a prison sentence for tax evasion and bank fraud) and Michael Flynn (pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI) — will be granted executive clemency,” he writes.

Colbert suggests that it is unlikely that Trump will pull the trigger on pardons before the election — calling it a “risky” calculation — but the day after the 2020 election whether he wins or loses.

“Trump’s safest course of action would be to wait to do the dirty deed until after Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. Trump’s impulsiveness, however, is a wild card,” he writes “Impeached or not, Trump can still grant pardons without fear of a citizens’ revolt — once the polls close. Even if the voters serve him with an eviction, Trump can still cut his boys loose, provided he acts before turning off the lights in the Oval Office.”

According to King, Trump simply doesn’t care about looking unethical, only the exercise of power.

“The Stone, Manafort and Flynn prediction is offered with confidence because of Trump’s demonstrated disregard for the integrity of the criminal-justice system,” he explained. “That disdain was on display in his recent chiseling of the military judicial process. Against the advice of experienced, respected leaders in the Pentagon, Trump intervened in three cases involving war-crimes accusations, overturning decisions of military juries and issuing full pardons to two soldiers convicted of war crimes, as well as reversing disciplinary action against a third service member, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL.”

“Trump doesn’t think rules apply to him,” King asserted. “With that presidential mind-set, Stone, Manafort and Flynn can rest easy this holiday season. Help is on the way; it’s only a matter of time.”

You can read more here.

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ABUSE OF POWER

‘Retaliatory Abuse’: Legal Experts Slam Barr DOJ for Opening ‘Politically-Motivated’ Criminal Inquiry Into John Bolton

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The Dept. of Justice is opening a criminal inquiry into John Bolton, allegedly to determine whether or not he disclosed classified information in his book, which discusses his 17 months serving as President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor.

“The department has convened a grand jury, which issued a subpoena for communications records from Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Mr. Bolton’s memoir, ‘The Room Where It Happened,'” The New York Times reports.

Legal experts, many of whom oppose Bolton for not warning the public about Trump when he was in the administration but waiting so he could publish his book, nevertheless say it looks like “retribution” and a political prosecution of the President’s critics.

The Trump administration tried to stop publication of the book, claiming Bolton had not been granted notice that his pre-publication review had been completed. Bolton has claimed he went through proper procedures and denies he published any classified information.

“Mr. Trump has made clear that he wants his former aide prosecuted,” The Times notes. “He said on Twitter that Mr. Bolton ‘broke the law’ and ‘should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information.’ He has also called Mr. Bolton ‘a dope,’ ‘incompetent ‘and the book ‘a compilation of lies and made up stories, all intended to make me look bad.'”

Trump has tweeted about Bolton more than two dozen times.

Legal experts are weighing in.

MSNBC Justice & Security Analyst, former chief spokesperson for the DOJ:

Former federal prosecutor:

CNN legal analyst, former federal and state prosecutor:

Former attorney in the Office of General Counsel of the National Security Agency, now Executive Editor of Lawfare:

Founder and award-winning editor at Talking Points Memo:

Professor in Law at the University of Texas School of Law, CNN contributor:

Attorney, analyst, author:

Former Deputy Legal Director at ACLU, current director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University:

Former CIA intelligence officer, current Georgetown University School of Foreign Service lecturer and NBC News national security and intelligence analyst:

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ABUSE OF POWER

Trump Fires Another Inspector General During Latest Friday Night News Dump: Report

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On Friday, Politico reported that Steve Linick, the inspector general of the State Department, has been fired.

Linick, a former official of the Justice Department, was appointed to the inspector general position by President Barack Obama in 2013. According to Politico, “he played a minor role in the House of Representatives’ impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, ferrying a trove of documents to lawmakers that had been provided to the State Department by Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.”

He will be replaced by Ambassador Stephen Akard, who previously headed the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions.

In recent months, Trump has fired several inspectors general, particularly those who have been involved in investigating misconduct accusations against his administration, sparking fears of retaliation.

 

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ABUSE OF POWER

‘We May See an Accomplice’: Ex-FBI Official Warns Barr Could Try to Indict Obama Team to Win the 2020 Election

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MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace poured cold water on the latest Republican talking points about the tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory they’ve concocted called Obamagate.

Speaking with former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, Frank Figliuzzi and former White House acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, Wallace noted that if the Trump team tries to go after Barack Obama, they’re going to end up taking down some Republicans along with them.

“The person who warned Donald Trump not to put Mike Flynn on any of the lists on key national security posts wasn’t a Democrat, it wasn’t Obama,” recalled Wallace. “It was Chris Cristie, Chris Christie was fired as head of the transition for not putting Mike Flynn on the list for any important national security position. Fact, Chris Christie was punished by Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon, they dumped the transition books which didn’t have Mike Flynn’s name on any of the lists because he, too, shared concerns about whether Mike Flynn was suitable for a national security position. So, there’s a pretty inconvenient little wrinkle in Donald Trump’s fantastical delusions about Mike Flynn and Chris Christie didn’t think he belonged in a national security post, either.”

In an NBC News editorial, Figliuzzi wrote that the president is likely headed into a campaign where he will be flinging conspiracy theories aimlessly in effort to save his own skin.

“We’re heading toward a period of time that’s going to be quite ugly. Where he’s going to certainly imply and want people to infer that President Obama and Vice President Biden engaged in a conspiracy against him to gin up the Russia hoax and the case against Flynn,” said Figliuzzi. “On a worst-case scenario, we may see an accomplice in this mess, the attorney general of the United States who might go to attempt to charge or smear in some official way, perhaps even to call a grand jury, where we see former officials, prior administration officials attacked, in an attempt to ruin them.”

Related –
Watch: Fox News Host Ends Segment After Attorney Destroys Fake Obamagate ‘Scandal’ in 4 Words Right Before Her Eyes

While there’s no precedent of a new president indicting the previous president, that would set a complicated precedent if former Vice President Joe Biden wins in 2020. If Trump tries to indict Obama, it would open the door for Biden to indict Trump if he wins.

He went on to explain how important to focus on the “fact vs. fiction” aspect of the story and call out the conspiracy theories. Both the Federalist article and Trump are clutching their pearls about “the notion that because the intelligence community was briefing the Obama administration” while he was still president, explained Figliuzzi. Because “Obama said this concerns me because we’re about to give classified briefings to the incoming administration, please tell me whether we can trust Flynn to give them the intelligence briefings, the intel community went out and looked at this.” That’s the so-called “scandal” the White House thinks is such a problem.

Meanwhile, the latest Harvard-Harris poll shows that 53 percent of Americans still believe what the Christopher Steele Dossier said was accurate. A Pew poll cited 72 percent of Americans anticipate Russia or some other foreign government will likely try to hack the 2020 election. That while 51 percent of the Americans surveyed who said Trump had encouraged election interference, the NPR/PBS/Marist Poll revealed.

Watch the video below:

 

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